


deacon logan's excellent transition

by folieafuck



Category: Bill & Ted (Movies)
Genre: Drug Use, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Transgender Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26260519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/folieafuck/pseuds/folieafuck
Summary: Ted knows something most impactful is going to happen the second his sister plows through his bedroom door.
Relationships: Ted "Theodore" Logan/Bill S. Preston Esq.
Comments: 24
Kudos: 160





	deacon logan's excellent transition

Ted knows something most impactful is going to happen the second his sister plows through his bedroom door. He’s known Rachel for fourteen years, and he’s been prepared for every horrible masturbation and/or menstruation story he’d been forced to read about as a young, maturing man. After all, as Freud had once mentioned, Rachel doesn’t have a decent parental figure. Ted has been lucky enough to absorb whatever magic goodish-with-kids powers his mom had before she’d taken off, so he’s doing his best to send her every positive thought that crosses his mind as she shifts on the balls of her feet. In retrospect, that’s not a lot of thoughts, but he still squints his eyes and beams at whatever twisted perspective has wormed its way into her developing mind. 

This is why watching her trudge dejectedly into his room is incredibly heinous. Her usual smirking cadence has been reduced to a watery grimace, and Ted doesn’t like it. As he often does when he’s upset, he stands, which only serves to bother him most bogusly. He’d been pretty comfortable, but now he’s on his feet, and his skin is crawling. “Rachel?” he asks in what he hopes is a calm and collected voice, something he’s tried hard to learn. “You okay?”

“You sound like you're about to shit your pants.” Her words are as ironic as always, and yet, Ted can tell she’s anything but kidding. Her shoulders are hunched, her lip is curled, and she strikes Ted as a small, angry Station, ready to scream and fuse into whatever’s nearest them to ignore what’s going on. He can’t have that. 

“Dude, I think _you’re_ about to shit,” he retorts most eloquently, and the half-smile on her face is almost enough to relax him. Almost. “What’s up, little sis? Is it time for pro wrestler Ted to take somebody down?”

She flinches, and Ted can nearly feel himself sink into the floor at his apparent error. Before he can scramble to correct whatever he’s done wrong, however, Rachel leans in with a terrified whisper, “Nobody's bothering me. But...but my name isn’t Rachel.”

This only surprises Ted a little. He’s been calling her Ray Charles for as long as he can remember, so her not feeling the nasty name their military dude has been calling her isn’t much of a surprise. “Well, what is your name?” he asks, feeling slightly more perplexed when his sister ducks entirely out of his line of sight.

“Deacon,” she says, shaking violently. 

Ted snorts. “Deacon is a weird name for a girl."

His sister looks at him, then. _Really_ looks at him.

Ted knows he isn’t smart. Half of his knowledge has been gleaned from the most intelligent Bill, and the other half is useless trivia knowledge he can only use at the karaoke bar. Even with this slim awareness, Ted feels two nerves in his brain fuse together. It’s quite odd, but he still asks lightly, “You’re not a chick, then, huh?”

His sibling’s face lights up, glows brighter than it had when they’d shredded Ted’s military school papers together, and he can feel himself getting a little giddy, too. “I’m not,” they choke. Ted puts on his impressive poker face, trying to make them more comfortable. Deacon laughs awkwardly before saying with the most epic of confidence, “I’m _not_. I’m a boy.”

Ted only sits on this for a minute before he offers, “I’m bisexual.” He wishes he had a camera rolling to record his brother's shell-shocked face. 

“With Bill?” he asks, and if he didn't look as ecstatic as he does, Ted might’ve denied this most unprecedented accusation. Instead, he clears the room with one long step and wraps his arms around Deacon’s scrawny shoulders. 

_Deacon_. Where’s that name been hiding? It fits him so much better.

"Yeah. Pretty gay, right?”

Deacon elbows him with a curse, biting back laughter, and Ted responds by shoving him to the floor. They tussle for a while until Deacon's got him by the face and he has to relent (although, if he hadn't revealed such a totally unrivaled confession, he'd have kicked his ass). When they get up, Ted gives Deacon a quick once-over. “Well, my newly-crowned brother,” he starts, sticking an arm his way for emphasis, “what shall we do to celebrate?”

“Celebrate me being a weirdo?” Deacon retorts, face twisted, but Ted shoves a finger against his lips.

“Shut up. As the Brothers of Logan, we don’t speak about ourselves like that, dude.” Ted just might slip masculine terms into every sentence he shares, if it’s going to make Deacon smile like this every time. “So, choose. The mall? The movies? I only have, like, twelve dollars, but the comic store is probably open…”

He trails off to watch Deacon think. Most unexpectedly, he scoops up the brunette locks trailing to his back. He smirks up at him, “Nah. Let’s just cut my hair.”

Ted is most nervous to mess it up, since the last time Bill had him help with his hair, he’d somehow ended up with the back of his head shaved. Ted reassured him it was cool and hot, because it was, and Bill hadn’t been mad; still, that might be too extreme of a change. He’s careful tying his hair up in a ponytail, figuring the few strands he’s forgotten don’t matter, and the first cut is easy. Six inches of hair come off in his hand, and he shoves it in Deacon’s face. “There’s a rat on your head, dude!” he hisses, and where Deacon would’ve most likely pushed him away or acted annoyed, he instead laughs aloud.

“Hurry up!” he reminds him, so Ted takes the tie out and tries to imitate Missy’s hairdresser friend who smells like banana daiquiris, even early in the morning.

After a few minutes, he brushes off Deacon’s shoulders, turning him for the final touches so he can’t see. When he’s satisfied, Ted spins him back to the mirror, feeling rather proud of himself. “Whatcha think?” he asks, taking in Deacon’s reaction.

It’s very delayed. His jaw drops as he runs his fingers through it, and Ted’s about to joke that he looks exactly like Bon Jovi if Bon Jovi were a little shithead, when he starts to cry.

Panic overwhelms Ted senses. He hesitantly rubs Deacon’s back, mouth starting to run faster than his thoughts. “I’m sorry, Deacon, we can shave it all off if you hate it so bad. Or, uh, we can buy you a wig? They make wigs for dudes, right? I’m sorry. Here, I can go look—”

He’s interrupted as Deacon throws himself at him, arms tight around his waist. This makes Ted itch most violently, but he hugs him back just as hard. “I love it,” Deacon’s muffled voice comes from his chest. When did the kid get so tall? “I look...I look _right_.”

Ted makes a disgruntled sound at this, but he bites back all his retorts about how he’d looked right the entire time, not wanting to ruin whatever plateau he’s helped Deacon cross. “You look like a tiny, smelly, handsome version of me,” he settles on, which earns him the same disgusted response he’d have gotten otherwise.

They spend the next hour on the downstairs couch, watching MTV and arguing over which bands are actually worth a crap. Deacon’s just about to lay into him on why Cyndi Lauper single-handedly influenced the metal scene when the familiar turning of the lock startles them from their reverie. This has caused a lot of terror throughout their childhoods, but, luckily for Deacon, Ted’s been on his dad’s ass for the better part of his life. If he ever saw the dude threaten to ship him off, or, like he had done to him on the rare occasion, smack him around, Ted’s sure he would’ve lost his mind. He doesn’t want to know what would happen then.

But ever since the history report and, more noticeably, the Battle of the Bands, Jonathan (as Ted’s taken to calling him, to reiterate the fact of his adulthood) has seemed to step off of his soapbox a bit. It helps that Ted doesn’t live with them anymore; on afternoons like this one, when Bill’s got an all-day shift or the princesses are off living their feminist, empowered lives, he’ll step in to check on Deacon and get some community college coursework done. When Captain Logan comes home on these infrequent visits, they’ll usually share a curt nod before going their separate ways. Dinner, a family meal thrown in the microwave at the last second, isn’t awful, but it isn’t a perfect picture, either.

This time, Ted thinks it’s going to be a little different, and judging by the look on Deacon’s face, he feels the same way. Before he can leap to his feet and run, which Ted is ninety-nine percent sure he’s about to do, he puts a hand on the top of his trimmed head. “Go chill, little dude. Let the man wind down from work and we’ll tell him at dinner, okay?”

Deacon looks up at him with something akin to amazement, and he’s behind his closed bedroom door before their dad’s even taken off his coat.

“Ted,” he greets, tipping his chin as he hangs up his officer’s hat. 

“Hey, Jonathan,” Ted allows, a conveniently placed textbook perched in between his legs. “Catch any bad guys today?”

This draws a huff of laughter from him, and Ted fights the instinctual urge to air guitar. He must applaud himself later, however, for his most excellent skills in setting the stage. “Not today. Did you?”

Unsure if this is a joke or a jab, Ted just rides with it. “Oh, plenty. One group of kids tried leaving the soda machine gobbed up with cheese, and I chased them for half a block.”

“If I could convince you to join the academy, you could put those skills to good use…” Jonathan disappears down the hall, and Ted gags behind a closed fist. Join the police academy? Work for _him_? It’s been a casual push of his, but every time it’s mentioned, he wants to crawl under the bed in his apartment and die.

Instead of doing that, Ted keeps his vigil in between the rock and the hard place. Johnathan doesn't make any moves to go visit Deacon, something that both comforts and bothers Ted at the same time. Why wouldn't you check on your child after a hard day at work? If Ted had a real little him running around, he'd be sneaking out during lunch to spring him from class. This train of thought leads him to imagine his and _Bill’s_ kid, and he’s pleasantly occupied until the timer above the stove goes off.

He raps on Deacon’s door, waiting until the music turns down to call, "Dinner’s ready.”

Deacon pokes his head out before shuffling meekly into the light, and Ted feels a goofy smile fall onto his face. His brother was never one for dresses and skirts in the first place, but he’s swapped out the shorts he was wearing earlier for an old pair of Ted’s jeans, and his blouse for a Mötley Crüe shirt. Ted salutes him for his choice.

“It makes me feel safe,” he starts to explain, but Ted waves his worries away.

“You're a grunge god,” he declares. Deacon laughs, but his face falls a little when Johnathan’s whistling comes through the floor. 

He hasn’t done this since he was a toddler, but he grasps Ted’s hand in his small, shaking one and mumbles, “He’s gonna flip, Ted.”

Ted ruffles his hair, which he’s becoming more and more attached to. There’s something weirdly delightful about having the longest hair in the family. “No, he’s not. I’ve got it under control, alright? All you have to do is keep up this rugged attitude, dude.”

Deacon doesn’t look like he believes him, but he still follows him down the carpeted stairs and slips into the kitchen.

“I went fancy tonight, boys,” their father calmly chats, looking over his shoulder. “I put it in the oven instead of the micro—”

Ted clasps a reassuring hand on Deacon’s shoulder. Jonathan looks him up and down, a quiver of his brow the only indication of his reaction. The silence in the room is thicker than the air of the apartment when his and Bill’s combined checks earn them some...something (Ted has never been able to say _weed_ aloud, another teasing point Bill loves to exploit, and he loves to let him). Before their father can say a thing, Ted loses the grin he’d shown to Deacon and says with a glare, “Captain Johnathan Logan, I’d like you to meet your son, Deacon Logan. I cut his hair most bodaciously, and he’s excited to have dinner with us.”

The two men lock eyes, and Ted tries to send him the most monumentally serious vibes he can. He knows he isn’t the scariest guy, but he’s straightened up and glowered at dumb kids who tried to bother Bill in high school, and they’d taken off without another word. So he imitates this with Johnathan, making sure he can read on his face that nothing negative will be allowed here.

After a beat, Jonathan asks, “Where’d you get Deacon from?”

His tone isn’t malicious, much to both the boys’ surprise. Deacon clears his throat. “Queen. Bass player.”

Ted wishes he’d asked earlier, because all he wants to do is high-five him for his genius. Instead, he grips him a little tighter, hoping that communicates his feelings. Their dad takes a moment, running this new information through his normally closed mind, before he casually takes his mitts off and steps towards them. Ted bares his teeth, but he only takes the set plates off the counter and rests them on the table.

“Not a bad choice,” he allows, and Ted can sense Deacon’s heart soaring. “Can I call you Dee?”

Deacon wrinkles his nose, but he still takes a seat. “Can I think about it?”

Ted and his father share another look before he shrugs, “Sure. Watch out for the chili, it’s a little spicy.”

The rest of dinner goes as usual: awkward. But this time, Ted calls him Deacon every chance he gets, and his beam of joy whenever Jonathan tests it on his tongue makes the evening spectacular. They sneak back upstairs without incident, after sharing the chore of dishes, and Ted’s about to duck into his room to give him some space when Deacon grabs his arm.

They never really hang out, and Ted hadn’t figured today’s interesting events would change that; but Deacon nods towards his room, that same smile on his face. "Wanna play some Kick Off?” he asks, and Ted gets the feeling that things are going to be different, but in a very excellent way.

“Most definitely,” he intones, and lets himself be dragged into a game he knows he won’t win, because he doesn’t have to.

He already won, big time.

✥

“Bill S. Preston, Esquire, allow me to introduce to you the new-and-improved Deacon Logan. He’s even slouching like a dude!”

“Ted…”

“Greetings, Mr. Logan. I must apologize for the state of the apartment. Ted decided we needed a pet skunk for a week, and he’s run away from home.”

“I know you guys are smoking weed. Just plug in the Atari.”

“ _Deacon!_ ”

“A most astute young man. I had a friend in high school who went to these balls and stuff, but he never wore a fancy gown or nothing. He just wrapped tape around his—”

“ _BILL!_ ”


End file.
